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Cofounded by Anuradha Das Mathur, The Vedica Scholars Programme for Women is an 18-month residential alternative to a traditional MBA program based in New Delhi solely for women. It is backed by a governing council that includes former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and McKinsey & Company director emeritus Joanna Barsh.

Interestingly, Mathur's cofounder is Pramath Raj Sinha, a former McKinsey partner and founding dean of ISB, a top business school as ranked by the FT.

ISB’s illustrious governing board reads like the who’s-who of global business and wealth: the Reliance Group’s Anil Ambani, Dell’s Michael Dell, Arcelor-Mittal’s Lakshmi Mittal, Khosla Ventures' Vinod Khosla, among others. But of the 72 member governing board at ISB, only five are women.

“It was clear that traditional management schools are not making the path for women any easier,” says Mathur. She likens the scenario to a game of golf in which all players are handed right-handed clubs, leaving the left handed players with a disadvantageous start.

“The education system doesn’t prepare women by not acknowledging that the working world is different, they’re not equipping them,” Mathur says.

“I was actually a very gender-optive person until I was in my 30s. I came from a home where women did everything,” says Mathur, who holds a master's degree in economics from the University of Cambridge and formerly ran India’s BusinessWorld magazine. “I had had a very equal upbringing.”

After being selected to be a part of the Fortune and U.S. State Department Emerging Women Leaders program due to her existing media firm, 9.9 Media, Mathur says she was exposed to a larger global debate on what the working world for women is like.

“I came back completely determined to do something,” she says.

The gender debate in India is not a gentle one -- in parts advanced, in other ways entirely backward. It’s a nation where a third gender is officially recognized for official government documentation, but the workplace still requests women to offer up a father’s or husband’s name in order to get a paycheck.

Changing the narrative

Arming women scholars with self-awareness, self-confidence, the power to negotiate, retain work-life balance and network were important considerations when Mathur and Sinha sat down to create the Vedica program.

“We bring boys up to believe they have to work and tell girls that they don’t have to work,” says Mathur. “How do we change the narrative?”

Launched in July 2015, the Vedica course is now on its third intake of students, with applications coming in from around India and the world. With a 10% acceptance rate, students are typically aged between 22 and 26, although there is no set age limit in place.

It's first batch of graduating students joined roles at a variety of corporates including Google and Nestle.

Students come from all manner of backgrounds, but a common theme was financial independence as urged by their mothers. “One of the girls told me her mother constantly says ‘Can you imagine asking someone for money to buy a packet of chips?’" says Mathur.

But she emphasizes this: “We’re not man-haters, we want equal diversity.”

Why things will change

The curriculum emphasizes how women’s strengths can play to the work environment, says Mathur, in a similar vein to a traditional MBA program.

Classes use role models, inviting both male and female speakers from a variety of business backgrounds, and students spend one month shadowing a female CEO mentor. International mentors are welcomed, she says, encouraging the women students to get experience in a global work-environment.

A class, part of The Vedica Scholars Programme, in New Delhi.

The Vedica Scholars Programme

As the program grows, Mathur envisions Vedica also becoming a hub of professional research on women’s issues, which can influence public policy and encourage women’s productivity within the working world. She also sees growing the academic side into a full-fledged university.

But in the meantime her goal is to ensure the Vedica students are equipped intellectually and emotionally to climb the ladder of financial independence in the workplace.

Currently residing between New Delhi and Hong Kong, I am a former financial journalist and have worked in London and Hong Kong with Bloomberg TV, and prior to this, in

…

Currently residing between New Delhi and Hong Kong, I am a former financial journalist and have worked in London and Hong Kong with Bloomberg TV, and prior to this, in Washington DC. I now write on a range of economic, political, development and social issues - whilst working on my own tech startup. I am also a contributor to the South China Morning Post and Forbes Asia, among others. I'm the author of Juggernaut's Honest Beauty, and have written a Lonely Planet Guidebook and a children's story for the literary NGO Pratham Books.